PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 8th, 2026: Iran’s Biggest Source of Cash Is About To Run Out & Russia’s Renewed Kyiv Strikes

Mike Baker (0:12)

It's Tuesday, the 8th of September, welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, from your eyes and ears, on the world stage. Oh, and by the way, congratulations to Ole Miss, they came out on top the other day against Louisville, bit of a nail biter, but it's in the wind column. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the US blockade of Iranian ports continues to impact Iran's economy, and new shipping data suggest the noose is tightening on the regime's oil industry.

Later in the show, Russia pounds Kyiv with missiles and drones immediately after US envoys depart the region, killing civilians and damaging buildings across the capital. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.

The US blockade of Iran may be approaching a critical point. New shipping data shows Tehran's oil exports have been effectively trapped inside the Persian Gulf for nearly two months. And the massive stockpile of crude oil that Iran had positioned overseas to keep the money flowing, well, that's rapidly running out. According to new reporting from the Wall Street Journal, no Iranian crude has successfully crossed the US blockade since it was reinstated back in mid-July.

Iran is still producing oil and it's still loading some of that oil onto tankers inside the Persian Gulf. But those newly loaded barrels are not reaching customers. So, now has Tehran continued selling roughly a million barrels of oil a day despite nearly two months of blockade? Well, the answer is Iran actually prepared for this blockade scenario. When diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran produced a temporary easing of the blockade back in June, you remember that Iran moved enormous quantities of crude oil out of the Persian Gulf. By mid-July, roughly 90 million barrels of Iranian oil were already sitting aboard vessels beyond the blockade, positioned for eventual delivery mostly to buyers in China. It amounted to a massive floating reserve. Once Washington resumed the blockade, Iran could still sell that oil that had been positioned beyond the strait. But that reserve is now reportedly running out. Kepler estimates the volume has fallen from roughly 90 million barrels in mid-July to around 29 million today. And at the current rate of delivery, that remaining supply could be exhausted by the middle of October. But even after that prepositioned oil is gone, payments for previously delivered cargoes could continue reaching Tehran for another couple of months. However, according to the Journal, those payments could largely dry up by mid-December.

For months, Iran has essentially been living off oil that it managed to get out before Washington decided to cease fire, or Memorandum of Understanding, or Temporary Pause, or whatever it was called, wasn't working. As a reminder, before the war, Iran was exporting close to 2 million barrels of crude every day. In August, it loaded an average of just 255,000 barrels a day onto vessels inside the Gulf, an 85% decline from the average earlier this year. And again, those newly loaded barrels remain trapped behind the blockade. Now, as alternatives go, moving the oil over land offers very little relief. Analysts estimate that Iran could transport no more than about 40,000 barrels a day by truck. Rail capacity is also limited, in part because Iran lacks enough specialized railcars designed to carry crude oil. And the longer that oil remains trapped inside Iran, the more difficult it becomes to store, because you run out of storage space. There are indications that Iran is already cutting production to prevent the storage facilities from filling up.

And the squeeze is extending beyond just crude. Iran's petrochemical industry is the country's second largest source of foreign currency after oil. According to Kepler, petrochemical loadings by August had fallen roughly two-thirds from levels seen earlier this year.

Iran is also facing trouble with its most important customer. For years, Chinese refiners have provided Tehran with a critical lifeline, buying sanctioned crude that many other countries wouldn't touch. But Gulf energy officials tell the Journal that some Chinese buyers are now shifting toward oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the UAE. In some cases, Iranian crude, which traditionally sold at a discount because of the US sanctions, is now actually more expensive for refiners because obtaining it has become so difficult.

That's adding even more pressure to an Iranian economy that's already under enormous strain. Oil revenue typically provides roughly one-third of the Iranian government's budget and supplies to Iran with the foreign currency that it needs to pay for imports and to support their currency, the real. As those dollars disappear, Iran has less ability to prop up its currency, and as the real weakens, imported food, machinery and raw materials become more expensive, pushing inflation even higher. Official inflation is already running above 80 percent year over year, according to the Journal, while the International Monetary Fund expects Iran's economy to contract some 5.4 percent this year.